Spirit of the Lake

by Paty Jager

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  Dove carried the powders and the tools she used back to Crazy One’s dwelling. The old woman was not in their tipi. She put the items where they belonged and ducked out of the structure. She stepped behind the tipi and peered around. No one roamed in the area. She headed to the bushes she used to relieve herself.

  Past the bushes, she continued up the cliff, stopping often to rest. Finally, she spotted Wewukiye’s cave. She entered the dark interior.

  Her eyes gradually recognized the walls and sparse supplies. She picked up two blankets and spread them one on top of the other and rolled a third blanket.

  I am here.

  She waited. Worry snuck into her thoughts sitting on the blankets waiting.

  The light dimmed. Her heart thrummed in her chest. Did he approach or did someone follow her?

  Wewukiye stepped into her sight and security wrapped around her. Her breath caught. His masculine build, sunshine hair, and aura of strength, melted every muscle in her body.

  He knelt on the blanket and opened his arms. She flowed against him, reveling in his warmth and security.

  Her arms locked around his neck, her lips sought his. Their kisses no longer held innocence and exploration. His tongue delved into her mouth. She treasured the taste of him and the intimacy. Her body ignited proving the needs this man of her heart brought to her were right. She dreamed of the day they could take their desires all the way.

  He leaned back, holding her at arm’s length. His eyes glowed a deep, dark blue much like the summer lake.

  “I wish to feel you in every way.” She pressed her palm to his cheek.

  “You know that is not possible until you have the child.” His voice sounded rough.

  “I know, but I want you to know this is my wish.” She stared into his eyes. He had to understand. “You are the only man I wish to touch me in all ways a man touches a woman.”

  He drew her back against his body. “I wish the same.” His hand roamed across her back, the other cupped her heavy breast.

  She leaned into his touch. The sensation of water skimming across her skin followed his touch. The softness and refreshed pleasure elicited a throaty sigh.

  He growled and captured her mouth with his once again. This time the kiss scorched her to her toes and left her dizzy. He reclined her onto the blankets, his body leaving no air between them. His hands continued to roam. As did hers—under his tunic and across the smooth hard muscles of his chest.

  The sensation of his skin to hers spun all thoughts out of her head other than touching him intimately. She shoved his tunic up his body.

  He grasped her arms. “No. If we take off clothes I will not be able to control—”

  She kissed his toned belly.

  “Aaaugh!” He pressed her tight against him breathing fast and hard against her ear.

  “If you continue to torment me, I will not meet you alone anymore.”

  She pressed her lips to his. He countered, moving away from her.

  “If you marry Lightning Wolf you will be sorry for your actions this day.”

  His words froze her inside and out like jumping into an ice covered lake.

  “I do not plan to become a wife to Lightning Wolf. I do not plan to become a wife to anyone other than you.” She shoved away from him. “Do you feel we are not mates?”

  The anguish in her dark eyes ripped at Wewukiye’s chest. He never wanted to cause her pain.

  “I feel you are my mate.” He kissed her lips tenderly, bestowing all the wonder he experienced at their connection. “I do not know how we can be mates and raise a child when I am of the spirit world and you the mortal world.”

  “We do well together now.”

  The wistfulness of her voice sucked the resolve from him. Reality would not allow him to forget the differences as much as he wanted to.

  “I would need to leave you when my duties call me. Sometimes these duties take me far. I also cannot stay in man form constantly.”

  Her arms wrapped tighter around him. “I have witnessed you in other forms.”

  He kissed her cheek. “I cannot remain in the village while in other forms. I do not think Thunder Traveling to Distant Mountains would understand a bull elk roaming among the dwellings.”

  “What will we do?” she whispered.

  “I do not know. But I will never give my heart to another.”

  “My heart is only held by you and my body will only be touched by you.”

  He held her in his arms until the sun faded in the sky.

  “Come, you must go back.” He stood and drew her up beside him. She slid up against his body like a warm mist of steam, and he trembled in anticipation at the image.

  “You excite my body in every move you make.” He clasped her to his chest and heart, kissing her hard, thorough, and intimately. He released her lips and nibbled on her neck waiting for the ache in his loins to lessen.

  Waiting to mate with her would be the closest thing to torture he had ever experienced.

  Le’éptit wax `oymátat

  (28)

  Dove ignored the pain shooting through her lower back. The Nimiipuu band traveled a day’s ride from the lake and their summer home. The women had spent ten suns in the meadow digging roots and drying them. She wasn’t allowed to work beside them. She and Springtime held company in a makeshift birthing hut. Both due to have their babies soon, they talked of birthing and raising their children.

  If not for being able to speak with Wewukiye in her head, Dove would have found the days of isolation hard to take. Crazy One and the other woman’s mother came twice a day to the hut bringing staples.

  Pain pierced again. She winced. Wewukiye peered back at her before she could hide her discomfort. Concern wrinkled his brow, and he stopped his horse, waiting for her to ride up beside him.

  “Why are you in pain?”

  They traveled as usual at the end of the band. Even though men were not to touch or see her now, he did not hold to the custom. He placed a hand on her leg. His touch eased some of her discomfort.

  “Pain shoots across my back. It hurts to sit on the horse.” She hated complaining. A wave hit, and she sucked in air.

  Crazy One rode up on her other side. “Is she not having the child?” She pointed a gnarled finger at Wewukiye. “Should you not go get Silent Doe? Does she not want to help?”

  Wewukiye swung off the horse and lifted Dove down. “I’ll set up the tipi first. You stay here with Dove.”

  Another pain spiraled through her belly. “Does this pain hurt the child?” she asked Crazy One, fearing the time too soon and something would happen to the baby.

  “Do you still feel the child moving?” Crazy One walked her in small circles.

  “Yes.”

  Crazy One smiled. “Does not your child tell you all is well?”

  Relief raced through her, relaxing her muscles and easing some of the pain. She watched Wewukiye struggle with the tipi.

  “Just drape it over the limbs of trees. It is all I require.”

  He twirled around, his eyes wide and fringed with red, showing his frustration and uncertainty.

  “Go get Silent Doe. Crazy One and I will fix the covering.” She clutched his hand and led him to his horse. “Your concern means everything to me, but right now, you would better serve me by getting more help.”

  He kissed her lips, stared into her eyes, and mounted the horse. “I will be back soon.”

  “I know.”

  He nudged his horse, and they set out at a lope toward the disappearing line of Nimiipuu.

  She turned to the task of spreading the tipi hide over branches. Lightning Wolf and his family decided to remain with the Lake Nimiipuu through the coming warm season. She knew it had to do with Silent Doe wanting to be with her during this time. She had formed a kinship with the woman. One she wished many times she shared with her own mother.

  Crazy One no longer mentioned a marriage between Dove and Lightning Wolf. That did not mean
the old woman would not pursue it again. Dove had grown fond of all of Lightning Wolf’s family, but she would not marry the man just to make things easier. She would not live with a man she did not care for as a woman should care for her mate.

  Crazy One tugged on the hide. They stretched it between the trees and placed poles and rolled rocks onto the overhang to hold it down.

  A pain originating at her back rippled through Dove’s belly. She stopped to breathe, focusing on a tree farther away.

  Dove caught glimpses of the old woman scurrying between their horses and the makeshift cover while she focused on the tree and not her pain.

  Crazy One grasped her arm and led her to the covering. Blankets hung from each end forming two more walls. One flipped up making a doorway to cast light inside.

  The woman lowered Dove onto a blanket spread upon the ground. “Is it not better to rest?” Her fading eyes searched the area beyond the opening. “Would it not be better to have stopped near a river?”

  Nimiipuu women usually delivered their children in water. She too wished they sat near the lake. For those who had experienced the water birthing called it wonderful.

  “I wish we were near water as well.” Another pain rippled through her belly.

  Crazy One patted her hand where she clutched her belly. “Will I be back with a drink and more blankets?”

  Dove lay on the blanket, staring up at the hide covering. She hugged the roundness that rippled and contracted. Her child would soon rest in her arms and suckle from her breasts. A wondrous ache spread in her chest and filled her mind with happy sensations. She would bring a child to the band.

  Crazy One dropped a pile of blankets on the ground and placed the rawhide pouch of water beside her. “Are you not about to experience what every woman dreams of?” The gleam and knowing in the woman’s eyes reflected the joy warming Dove.

  “Have you been a mother—a wife?” She knew little of the woman’s life.

  Sadness drew the woman’s features down, adding years to her face. “Did I not love a brave warrior and did he not spill his seed?” The woman peered up at the covering. A tear slid down her cheek. “Are they not together watching over me?”

  “I am sorry. I did not mean to bring you sorrow.” Dove took the woman’s cold, fragile hand in hers. “It must be hard to lose the man and child you love.”

  Crazy One glanced down at her. “Is now not a time of gladness not sorrow?”

  Sharp arrows sliced through her belly. She clutched the bony hand she held. The sensation eased, and Crazy One withdrew her hand, replacing it with a small buckskin cloth.

  “Is this not good to squeeze?”

  “Thank you.” Dove sipped the water and watched the woman bustle around the enclosure.

  Silent Doe arrived bearing a wide smile and gentle hands that rubbed her back and eased her fears. “If this baby could have waited, the birthing would have been easier on you.” She nodded toward the opening. “One more day and you would have birthed him in the lake of your people.”

  “I think he did not want a large gathering on his first day.” Dove smiled and grimaced at the pain trailing from her back to belly and down.

  She called to Wewukiye in her mind as each pain became stronger and the child pushed to see the world. His calm replies eased her pain and worry.

  Crazy One and Silent Doe stayed by her side through the day and into the dark night. Her child finally emerged.

  “You have a strong daughter,” Silent Doe announced.

  Crazy One cut the umbilical cord and put it in the pouch hanging from the cradleboard she so lovingly worked on during the cold winter nights. The cord would remain in the pouch and with the child for her lifetime unless she became ill. Then the shaman would use the cord to heal her.

  Dove reached for her squirming daughter. Dark hair swirled on her round head. Her eyes scrunched closed as she squalled. Dove blew in her face. She hiccupped and opened her eyes. Two brown eyes, one lighter than the other, stared at Dove in surprise.

  Her heart lurched, and her arms became weak. Silent Doe grasped the child as Dove’s arms fell to her sides. The child looked just like her.

  No one would believe her accusations against Evil Eyes.

  Her body shook and numbness slid into her body.

  Dove? Dove? What is wrong?

  Wewukiye charged into the structure. Dove’s power had surged and then faded.

  She lay on the blankets, lifeless. Her eyes staring at nothing.

  “You should not—”

  Silent Doe’s attempt of push him back out the structure went unheeded as he dropped to his knees beside Dove.

  He drew her up into his arms and peered at Crazy One. “Did the birth not go well? Is she—” He could not say the word or even think it. They had come too far for her to leave him now.

  A wail rang out as Crazy One splashed water on the child. “Is not the child strong and the mother in shock?”

  “Shock? Of what?” He shook Dove. “Look at me. What is wrong?”

  Her eyelids flickered, and she murmured something.

  He leaned closer to her lips. Moments before he planned to walk in and kiss her lips to show her how much he thought of her strength. Now all he could think of was kissing her and filling her with his strength.

  “Eyes,” she said on a soft wisp of air.

  “You are too strong to allow Evil Eyes to take away your strength.”

  “Brown. Both.” She turned her head into his chest and wept.

  Wewukiye stared at the child wailing and squirming in Crazy One’s hands. It could not be. This child would set Dove free.

  He watched the old hands clean the child.

  How could the eyes not be different? The White man’s evil ways must be exposed. He knew Dove did not lie, but how could they prove her truth to the elders?

  Wewukiye studied the child. A daughter. He smiled. She would be brave and strong like her mother.

  “We will find a way to prove the truth. She is just born. We cannot ask so much of one so young. Your daughter is strong and will have her mother’s txiỷak.”

  Tears trickled down Dove’s face. She gathered her daughter into her arms, and she kissed the child’s head. “Together we will be strong, little one.”

  Wewukiye studied the mother and child. The love emanating from Dove wrapped the two in a golden halo. His heart cracked, and he grieved for the mother he could not remember. She had died before their father shamed the family. Had she loved him and his siblings with as strong an attachment as this woman did this child? He shook off the sad thoughts.

  Dove smiled and pushed the tears from her face. “Meet the child of our people.”

  He kissed her cheek and stared at the child. The baby’s hands curled in tight fists, yet she suckled noisily at her mother’s breast under a blanket Silent Doe tossed across Dove’s shoulder.

  In his worry over Dove he forgot to keep his emotions in check. He glanced at the woman and read acceptance in her eyes. Had Dove told her of their love?

  Silent Doe left the structure, and Crazy One stood guard at the entrance, giving them a moment alone.

  Wewukiye placed a kiss on Dove’s shiny forehead. “Congratulations on a healthy girl.”

  “Would you like to see her beauty?” Dove deftly drew the child out from under the blanket. The child’s small lips continued sucking, her eyes scrunched closed. But he could already see her mother in her.

  “She is a beautiful daughter. She glows with the goodness of her mother.”

  Dove’s breath whooshed out on an audible sigh of relief.

  “Is it wrong to have wished this child be a girl? I feared if she were a boy and had the eyes of her father I would not be able to love him. Because she is a sweet girl, with soft eyes I do not fear her. She will not grow up to be domineering and hurt others.” The forgiveness she asked of him was not his to give.

  “You are the only one who can judge yourself. I, too, am pleased you had a girl, but it is my own selfis
h reasons of wishing for more wonderful women like you among the Nimiipuu.”

  He reclined on the blanket next to her, looping an arm around her shoulders and drawing the two females next to his heart. “I am still uncertain how to make you my family, but I am sure the Creator will help guide us to the way.”

  “That is our wish. To be your family.” Dove raised her lips to his, and he could not have refused her a kiss had the Creator himself grabbed him by the scruff of the neck.

  He had missed the touch of her lips and the gentleness of her hands over the last two moons during her restriction to the menstrual hut. Had she been alone with just Crazy One, he could have continued his nightly visits. For he was a spirit and the belief a male would have bad luck being around a woman during her confinement did not pertain to him. No mortal could take away his power. Even a pregnant one with powers of her own.

  He drew out of their kiss and she sighed.

  “I have missed you. Had it not been for our internal conversations, I would have run from that hut and sought you—tradition or not.”

  He chuckled. “If Springtime had not been in the hut with you, I would have visited you every night.”

  Dove put a hand on his cheek as he stared down at the sleeping child in her arm. “Can you promise to never leave”—she glanced down at the child—“us.”

  His chest squeezed so hard he thought his ribs would crack. “I can only promise I will do everything I can to remain a part of your lives. I am not sure how we are to be together, but it is my desire to make it happen.”

  She kissed his lips. “That you wish to be with me is enough.”

  He stared into her eyes. The honesty, desire, and love he witnessed gladdened his heart. “I wish to be with you in every way a man wants a woman by his side. I will discuss the possibilities again with Sa-qan. We just have to be patient that a solution will come.”

  “I will wait through eternity to be with you.”

  The child jerked, and her eyes shot open. Wewukiye glimpsed her soft brown eyes for the first time. A smug smile crept upon his lips. While the eyes may not be Evil Eyes downfall, they would find a way to prove his evil.